Illinois DCFS Admits 166 Foster Kids Missing
NOTE: The Unknown Podcast is available on YouTube and Rumble.
By Richard Luthmann with Michael Volpe
FOIA Uncovers Explosive Rise in Missing Foster Kids
(ILLINOIS, USA) – Illinois’ child welfare system is facing a terrifying question: Where are its missing kids? For years, only a handful of children vanished annually from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) system.
But newly obtained FOIA documents reveal a staggering surge – 166 children missing in 2024, up from just 16 the year before. That’s a 935% jump in one year, an unprecedented spike that has officials and families alarmed.
State House candidate Bailey Templeton unearthed the numbers after filing public records requests in June.
“We had a trend of like one to two, maybe three children missing between 2017 until 2023,” Templeton said on a recent Special Edition of The Unknown Podcast. “In 2023, 16 kids went missing… Not as unheard of as 2024, where there were 166 children reported missing.”
In prior years, as few as one child in care went missing annually. The sudden jump to triple digits in 2024 is a FOIA bombshell now reverberating through Illinois.
The revelation prompted urgent questions by The Unknown Podcast co-hosts Michael Volpe and Richard Luthmann: How did the number of missing foster kids leap from a mere handful to a small army of lost children? Even DCFS’s own Auditor General had never flagged anything close to this level – a 2014 audit found procedural gaps but nothing to explain a mass disappearance.
Templeton’s findings hit like a thunderbolt, raising the prospect that scores of vulnerable children have slipped off DCFS’s radar.
“Something has happened in the past two years that has made it either easier to lose foster children, or the follow-through or the tracking of these foster children is not being properly done,” Templeton said in the interview, demanding to know what changed.
The data spike has since made headlines and sparked a public outcry for answers. Illinois citizens and child advocates are pressing for an explanation, while DCFS scrambles to account for the missing kids. Officially, the agency has acknowledged the numbers but offered little clarity – a spokesperson admitted the 2024 figure “jumped” dramatically. With 166 children unaccounted for, the FOIA data drop has exposed what appears to be a full-blown crisis in the foster care system.
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Bailey Templeton isn’t satisfied with DCFS’s muted response – and she smells a cover-up. After her FOIA findings went public, Illinois DCFS officials downplayed and disputed the data instead of explaining it. Templeton reports that agency insiders tried to discredit the very records they themselves provided.
“They told one editor that the numbers that I received weren’t even accurate,” Templeton said, describing how DCFS reacted when pressed by the media.
Yet the source of those figures was DCFS’s own FOIA officer, as Templeton has the emails and documents to prove.
“DCFS FOIA Officer. I’ve got the paper trail of everything,” she affirmed when asked who supplied the data.
According to Templeton, DCFS even told other journalists that they “hadn’t corresponded” with her at all, essentially denying the FOIA exchange ever took place.
“I have proof of everything,” Templeton said.
The implication is profound: the agency appears to be backtracking on its official count of missing children.
“It seems that they’re just either going to cook the books or… something very nefarious is happening within the system because they are not releasing the numbers to the press that they gave me,” Templeton warned.
Her bombshell allegation – that DCFS might falsify or suppress data – underscores a deepening mistrust between the whistleblower and the agency tasked with protecting kids.
Meanwhile, DCFS has offered only vague and delayed responses. An agency spokesperson conceded to one outlet that the previously released missing-kids numbers were “not completely accurate,” but did not specify why. Updated figures have been promised but not delivered; DCFS claimed it “has not located” the relevant records and needed more time for an “additional search.”
Friday’s deadline for a follow-up FOIA response came and went with no new information. This evasiveness has only fueled Templeton’s suspicions. To her, DCFS’s stance appears to be stonewalling to hide incompetence – or worse. The agency’s refusal to clarify the fate of 166 children has left a vacuum filled with fear and rumors.
Illinois DCFS and state officials, for their part, have made no detailed public comment explaining the spike. Other than disputing the data’s accuracy, they’ve been silent on where these kids are or how so many vanished on their watch.
Templeton isn’t backing down. Armed with documents and public outrage, she’s calling out DCFS’s opacity.
“I asked for these numbers back in June,” she said, blasting the agency’s foot-dragging.
Each day without answers intensifies concerns that the missing children crisis is being swept under the rug instead of being solved.
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The specter of child trafficking now looms over Illinois’ missing foster kids. Thus far, DCFS has refused even to utter the possibility.
“They won’t speak about it,” Templeton said when asked if officials have ruled out a trafficking connection.
No Illinois lawmaker or DCFS leader has publicly demanded an inquiry into whether these disappearances might be linked to sex trafficking rings, a point not lost on Templeton.
“I don’t think anybody has raised that concern,” she noted, referring to the alarming jump in missing children.
In The Unknown Podcast interview, co-host Richard Luthmann pointed out that even State Rep. Norine Hammond – the local legislator and DCFS oversight committee member – hasn’t been asking if a trafficking ring could be at play. Instead, DCFS’s internal reports label missing kids with sterile terms like “unknown whereabouts,” “no contact,” or “abducted.”
And the FOIA data show a chilling subset: “22 children who were abducted last year in foster care in Illinois… 22 confirmed,” Templeton revealed.
Twenty-two abducted kids in one year is a red flag that something horrific may be happening. Templeton suggests DCFS might not even have the full count – if foster parents fail to report children missing, cases could slip through the cracks entirely.
“If these foster parents are not reporting these children as missing, the numbers are very skewed,” she said. “There’s a lot into this that you just can’t [see]… nobody’s asking these questions.”
Off the record, law enforcement sources are expressing similar alarm. Several veteran Illinois investigators, speaking on condition of anonymity, tell The Family Court Circus that the 166 missing figure is “highly suspect.”
“It would be shocking if a trafficking ring weren’t operating under DCFS’s nose,” one seasoned officer said bluntly, reacting to the unprecedented surge.
These sources emphasize that when dozens of children vanish from state care with no clear explanation, organized exploitation is a very real concern.
National advocates note that foster youth are prime targets for traffickers – a recent analysis by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found over four hundred missing foster kids in Georgia were likely sex trafficking victims. Maryland admitted losing 1,000 children in foster care. Illinois could now be facing the same nightmare scenario.
Templeton calls the situation a “child trafficking powder keg” waiting to blow. She’s urging authorities to treat the missing kids’ crisis with the urgency of an Amber Alert – not just an accounting anomaly.
Thus far, however, Illinois officials have been reluctant to even use the word “trafficking” in discussing the 166 missing children. Templeton’s camp insists that it needs to change, fast.
“Whatever can be swept under the rug gets swept under the rug,” Templeton warned of the state’s complacency.
Unless Illinois wakes up and confronts the ugly possibilities, she suggests, more children could disappear into the shadows.
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Bailey Templeton isn’t just sounding the alarm – she’s proposing solutions. A Republican State House candidate and longtime child advocate, Templeton has made DCFS reform her rallying cry. She insists on aggressive oversight to ensure no more kids slip through the cracks.
“Absolutely… demanding third-party audits,” Templeton said when asked how she’d tackle DCFS’s failures. “There needs to be so much oversight. These are our children.”
She wants an outside audit not only to find the missing kids, but to follow the money. Templeton is suspicious that some of these children might still be generating foster care payments or federal benefits even while unaccounted for. She wants investigators to track every dollar.
“Look at what’s going on with these children, to see if these children that are missing are receiving any state or federal benefits, where that money is going,” Templeton urged. “Specifically, we need to find these children.”
Her call is simple: find the kids, and follow the paper trail. Templeton also believes the state must narrow the pipeline of children entering DCFS care for trivial reasons – poverty, petty disputes, medical disagreements – so the system can focus on truly endangered kids. She argues Illinois needs to redefine “neglect” to stop unjustified removals that swell the system’s caseload.
In her view, DCFS has been snatching kids too readily from loving but struggling families, while failing to safeguard those truly at risk.
Crucially, Templeton is also fighting a political battle against DCFS’s push for more power and protection. She has zero patience for giving the agency “get-out-of-jail-free” cards when it drops the ball. In fact, she’s outraged by a current legislative proposal that would do just that.
House Bill 3138, quietly introduced earlier this year, would create a “Temporary Immunity for Child Welfare Agencies Act,” shielding DCFS and private foster agencies from civil liability for two years unless gross misconduct is proven. Templeton has been “sounding the alarm” about HB3138, slamming it as a brazen bid to expand DCFS’s power while erasing accountability.
The bill would hand DCFS a two-year shield of immunity – effectively insulating the agency from lawsuits even if children are harmed by its negligence.
“When [Illinois lawmakers] do speak about DCFS… It’s not a good bill that they’re putting forward,” Templeton said pointedly.
She sees HB3138 as precisely that kind of bad bill. Critics agree such immunity would create a dangerous lack of recourse for families: if a child in foster care goes missing or is hurt, the agency couldn’t be sued unless willful wrongdoing is proven – a high bar that all but guarantees DCFS walks away unscathed.
Templeton contends this is the opposite of what Illinois needs. Rather than shield DCFS from consequences, she argues, the state should be dropping the hammer on a department that lost 166 kids. The candidate vows to fight HB3138 and any attempt further to empower DCFS at the expense of children’s safety. Lawmakers, she insists, should be auditing DCFS, not indulging it.
Templeton’s crusade is gaining supporters among parents, activists, and even some law enforcement officials who are dismayed by DCFS’s performance. She’s calling for legislative hearings, independent auditors, and a top-to-bottom housecleaning at DCFS.
Notably, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s office and DCFS leadership have so far declined to comment on the missing children spike and Templeton’s accusations. The silence from the state’s highest levels only fuels Templeton’s determination. She delivered an emotional vow on a recent podcast, making clear that this fight is personal.
“I would love to… bring those 166 kids home,” Templeton said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Even if I don’t win this election, I just won’t be able to sleep until we find those kids… Because they could be sitting every night, wondering if anybody’s even looking for them. And before I started asking questions, nobody was.”
With tears in her eyes, she promised never to stop seeking the truth of what happened to Illinois’ lost children. The DCFS missing kids scandal has blown open – and Bailey Templeton isn’t about to let it be swept under the rug.
